


Severe Case of Stupid

by hawksonfire



Series: Marvel Bingo 2019 [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: No Romance, None - Freeform, Other, Pietro is a little shit, Steve & Pietro Friendship, Trapped, and they are stuck together, nada - Freeform, steve is such a dad, thats it, there was an explosion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 05:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18514717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawksonfire/pseuds/hawksonfire
Summary: Pietro is constantly moving. Running, twitching, fidgeting. So what happens when he can't move? Steve Rogers to the rescue, of course.





	Severe Case of Stupid

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Marvel Bingo N4 - Trapped Together.
> 
> Thanks to the Bad Decisions Bingo peeps for helping me come up with this.

**Steve**

Steve had been having a nice, quiet conversation with Pietro - well, as quiet as one could be with that boy, anyway - as they wandered the halls of the compound, and then the wall exploded. A chunk of it slammed into Steve’s head and he dropped like a stone, dazed and bleeding. 

He had seen Pietro zip past him seconds before the wall went kaboom, so he figured he couldn’t be too far away. “Pietro?” He rasped, trying in vain to wet his mouth through the dust. “Quicksilver, respond!”

Nothing. Steve wasn’t  _ worried _ , per se - he knew the young speedster could take care of himself. It’s just… Steve had a soft spot for the kid. Pietro reminded Steve of himself when he was younger and less hardened by all he had seen. Pietro still had a light inside him - and Steve would be damned if he was gonna let it go out. 

“Pietro, if you can hear me, make some noise!” Steve shouts, pushing himself off the ground. He gets about six inches off the ground and his back hits something. Steve lowers himself back to the ground and flips over, coming face-to-beam with a piece of rubble the size of Tony’s Hulkbuster armour - and twice as heavy, no doubt. 

“Steve…” He hears faintly, and then some coughing. 

“Pietro, if that was you, I heard it! I’m coming, okay? Just give me a second and stay where you are!” Determined, Steve pushes at the slab of concrete, unsurprised when it doesn’t budge. 

“Couldn’t move even if I wanted to, old man…” Pietro groans. Something in his voice sounds off and Steve doubles his efforts to move the rubble on top of him. After a minute of trying to move it so hard he’s pretty sure he popped a blood vessel, Steve sighs. He cranes his head, trying to see past the rubble towards his feet, but the dust cloud is still too thick. Steve takes a deep breath, makes himself as small as possible and wiggles his way out from under the giant slab of concrete.

“Pietro, where you at? I can’t see anything in this dust cloud,” Steve says, praying that Pietro can still respond. There’s no verbal response but something metal clangs off to his right and Steve heads in that direction, stepping over iron pipes and chunks of rubble carefully. “I’m coming, Pietro, just hang on!”

“Not so loud, old man,” Pietro says, his voice slightly stronger - and coming from almost directly under Steve’s feet. Steve comes to an abrupt stop, pinwheeling his arms to keep from falling over. Pietro chuckles and then coughs. “Found me.”

“Are you alright? Can you move?” Steve asks, crouching down beside the boy. And he is a boy, no matter what he says. He’s only sixteen, for Chrissakes. He should be worrying about first crushes and final exams, not aliens and apocalypses.

“Something’s pinning my legs, and my head hurts but I think I’m okay other than that,” Pietro says. Steve takes him in, breathing a small sigh of relief when he sees that his eyes are clear and his head only has a small bump on it, likely from hitting the floor after the explosion.

“Alright, let’s see if I can get your legs free. I need you to remain as still as you can, okay?” Steve says calmly, shifting his focus towards Pietro’s legs. He almost can’t find them and then he realizes - they’re pinned under what looks like a slab of concrete bigger than the one that was overtop of him. Steve swallows, but looks back to Pietro, meeting his gaze calmly. “It looks like your legs are pinned underneath the rubble. Can you feel them?” Pietro nods, lips pressed together tightly. “Are you in pain?” He shakes his head no. Steve nods. “Okay. I need you to tell me if you can wiggle your toes.”

Pietro’s face scrunches up in concentration and Steve waits with bated breath. Please, don’t let the kid lose his legs. It would destroy him. “I don’t know,” Pietro says, looking at Steve with wild eyes. “Steve, I don’t know if I can move them!”

“Hey, hey!” Steve grabs Pietro’s shoulders. “It’s okay. I’m going to see if I can lift it up and get a look at what’s going on underneath, okay? Your circulation might just be bad.” Which can make him lose his feet if they don’t fix it - and fast, Steve thinks. He walks around to the other side of the slab and slides his fingers underneath, searching for a good grip. “When I lift this, you might feel some pain, depending on what’s underneath. Stay as still as you can, and if I think you can get out without causing yourself further harm, I’ll say so and you need to move. But don’t move unless I say, got it?”

Pietro nods, chewing at his lip and staring at Steve. Steve sucks in a breath and  _ lifts _ . He lets out a slight groan as the enormous sheet of solid rock refuses to budge. Steve channels every single ounce of strength that the damn serum gave him and pushes at the concrete, slumping to the floor and gasping weakly when it doesn’t move. “Sorry, Pietro,” Steve gets out through his laboured breathing, “Looks like we’re stuck here for a while.”

“I could do this all day,” Pietro says cockily. But there’s an undertone of  _ something _ that Steve doesn’t like, so he forces himself to get up and go back to sitting beside Pietro’s head. 

“You remind me of me,” Steve says, grinning faintly. 

“No way,” Pietro scoffs, “I’m not anything like you.”

Steve would take offence, but he thinks Pietro means that as more of a dig against himself than against Steve. “No, really,” Steve says, “I used to be smaller than you and much slower, but I would say that same thing whenever I got into a fight.”

“You were - you were smaller than me?” Pietro says in disbelief.

Steve snorts. “Smaller than Wanda, even,” he assures the kid. Pietro laughs, then tries to cover it up with a cough. “No, it’s alright, you can laugh,” Steve says. “I know, it’s hard to believe. The serum turned me into this pile of muscles. Bucky used to say that I finally had the body to match my fighting spirit.” Steve grins and looks down at his feet.

“I don’t think anything could match that,” Pietro says dryly. Despite the situation, Steve laughs.

“Probably true,” he admits, “But It sure helped. I stopped losing fights, starting winning them instead. First time I walked away from a fight without a scratch, I was in shock. It had never happened before.”

“And then you started winning wars,” Pietro says earnestly.

“Yeah,” Steve says softly, “But I lost other stuff.” Pietro puts a hand on his shoulder awkwardly and Steve smiles.

“I always won the fights I started,” Pietro says quietly. “My family… we were not like the others. Different practices, different prayers - people don’t like different.” He shrugs. “I could run away - I’ve always been fast, even before…” He waves his hand and Steve nods - before Strucker, before Ultron, he means. “My sister got the worst of it because she was a girl. I could not be with her to scare the cruelty away all the time, so she learned to do it herself. Eventually, she didn’t need me to protect her anymore, but I still did. We protected each other. We ran away  _ together _ .” He grins savagely. “Different was not so bad after that.”

Steve chuckles. “I’m glad you two had each other.”

Pietro nods, and they fall into silence - the only sound is their breathing. Steve nearly falls into a trance, and then Pietro’s breathing changes. It gets more rapid and shallow, and Steve recognizes the signs of an oncoming panic attack. “Steve, what if they cannot get this off me?” Pietro says wildly, clutching at his sleeve. “What if I can never run again? If I am confined to a chair for the rest of my life - I do not want to be confined to a chair!” 

“Hey, hey!” Steve says, grabbing Pietro’s hands and squeezing tightly. “You’re going to be fine, Pietro. If there is anything wrong with your legs after this, I will do  _ everything  _ in my power to make sure that you come out of this exactly like you were before. You’re going to be fine, alright?” Without waiting for an answer, Steve lets go of Pietro’s hands and strides around to the other side of the concrete slab again. “Get ready to move.”

“But Steve -”

“I said get ready!” Once again, Steve channels every bit of strength into lifting the piece of solid rock - but this time, he also channels every bit of rage and helplessness he feels at the thought of Pietro losing his legs - losing one of the only connections he has left to his country, to his past. He slides his hands underneath the rock, getting a good grip and then - Steve  _ lifts _ . He screams so loud the back of his throat tears and he tastes blood - and then the serum heals it and he does it again, screaming louder and louder until - the sheet of solid rock moves. And then it moves again and again, until Steve has lifted it above his head and he can see that Pietro’s legs are fine, they’re just scraped up. “Move!” Steve grunts, arms beginning to shake.

Pietro darts out from under the concrete, slamming into a wall on the opposite side of the room. Steve lets the rubble fall, and it hits the floor with a  _ crash _ . He sways on his feet, vision blurring. “Steve? … okay?” He hears, his hearing cutting in and out. 

“‘M fine,” Steve slurs. Then his eyes roll back in his head and he collapses, everything going black.

~~~~~~

Steve wakes up in the medical suite, going from unconsciousness one moment directly to being fully awake. “I was not fine,” he groans, sore all over.

“No, old man, you were not.” Steve opens one eye to see Pietro standing over him, arms crossed. 

“Diagnosis?” Steve winces. Even talking hurts.

“Concussion, fractured tibia, five cracked ribs, two broken ones, and a severe case of stupid,” Pietro says, cracking a grin. “Also, the doctors say you threw your back out.”

Despite himself, Steve grins. “You’re never going to let this go, are you?” Pietro shakes his head, laughing. Steve laughs along with him, grateful that he was able to lift the rubble and free Pietro. Then he groans as the laughter sends a wave of pain through his skull.

He stops laughing and fidgets slightly, then throws himself forward and wraps his arms around Steve’s stomach. Steve grunts in pain, but Pietro mumbles something into his torso - “Thank you.” - and then disappears out of the room. 

Steve sighs. And then he groans when Bucky walks in, glaring. He opens his mouth, probably to start yelling, but Steve cuts him off. “I know, I know, I’m a moron.” Steve sighs. “Also, I think I’ve adopted Pietro and Wanda.”

Bucky closes his mouth. Then opens it. Then closes it again. “Say that again?”

**Author's Note:**

> I never write Pietro. Like, ever. So tell me how I did? I hope I did him justice.


End file.
